Coke is a solid carbon fuel and carbon source used to melt and reduce iron ore in the production of steel. In one process, known as the “Thompson Coking Process,” coke is produced by batch feeding pulverized coal to an oven that is sealed and heated to very high temperatures for approximately forty-eight hours under closely-controlled atmospheric conditions. Coking ovens have been used for many years to convert coal into metallurgical coke. During the coking process, finely crushed coal is heated under controlled temperature conditions to devolatilize the coal and form a fused mass of coke having a predetermined porosity and strength.
Coal particles or a blend of coal particles are charged, or loaded, into the hot ovens, and the coal is heated in the ovens. Due to the high temperature of the ovens during the charging process, the coal feeding process must use conveyers to convey coal particles horizontally into the ovens and provide an elongate bed of coal. The conveyer, which is manually-controlled by an operator, enters the ovens from a pusher side opening and charges coal into oven as it extends toward a coke side opening at the opposite end of the oven. Once the conveyer reaches the opposite end and finishes charging the bed, the conveyer retracts out of the oven from the same side it entered. Once charged, the oven is sealed and heated to form coke.
The manual charging of an oven in this manner commonly results in an uneven coal bed profile. More specifically, opposite ends of the coal bed will often have a different thickness of material, with the coal near the pusher side opening having a significantly greater thickness than the coal near the coke side opening. As a result of the uneven bed profile, the portion of coal at the thin side cokes out much faster and experiences a higher burn loss. The charging of the oven in this manner also commonly leads to inconsistent coke quality and short charging the oven, in which a coal capacity less than the oven's full potential is loaded. The overall effect is reduced coke quality, coke output and revenue for a coke-producing facility.